Deep or Just Rested
Three games in seven days. One calf already ruled out. Saturday against Perth is when Sydney finds out if the bench is real.
Three games in seven days. One calf already ruled out. Saturday against Perth is when Sydney finds out if the bench is real.
Three games in seven days. Adelaide and the Breakers have both beaten the Kings. Dellavedova's calf rules him out of Perth. Saturday night is not a schedule note. It is the week that tells you if Sydney is deep, or just rested.
Wednesday morning, Crown Street. A young fella in for a fade had the injury list open and was talking like the season had moved on. "They're still three and one, bro. Delly averages six. Perth's percentage is rubbish. KD will just cook them."
The barber, the Lebanese-Australian bloke from Bankstown who's been cutting in Surry Hills since the late 2000s, didn't argue. He wiped the clippers, pointed at the calendar on the mirror, and said, "Count the nights. Then tell me it's fine."
Sunday at Afterpay: Adelaide 84, Kings 78. Crowd 13,365. Quarters 18-18, 26-23 (44-41 half), then the third quarter freeze that handed the game away: Sydney 12 points, Adelaide 20, and the second half finished 43-34 to the visitors. First Kings loss of NBL27. First Adelaide win at Afterpay since February 2025.
Cooks was the best King on the floor: 22 and 8. Davis went 16, 5 and 7 on 6 from 19, 1 from 8 from three, four turnovers, minus-11. Maluach gave 12 off the bench. Craig shot 2 from 11. Dellavedova: 5, 4 and 6, zero turnovers in 21 minutes. The docket the shop cares about was the empty third: 6 from 16, 0 from 5 from deep, and the trips they handed back while Jenkins hit six threes and Kenyon bit on defence.
That was game one of the seven-day stack.
Wednesday night in Canberra was game two: Kings versus the Breakers at AIS Arena, Ignite Cup, Kouat Noi's first game against his old club, both sides coming in on an Ignite Cup win (Kings 6 points, Breakers 7). And before that tip even landed, the Kings confirmed the thing that turns a busy week into a depth test.
Canberra didn't help the legs question: a 102-101 loss to the Breakers, second on the bounce, and the Kings land on Perth at 3-2 with Delly still in street clothes. Sydney were ten up at the half, scored 12 in the third on 4 from 20, and Torrey Craig's four threes in the last two minutes (28 for the night) fell a point short. Makuach Maluach started in Delly's spot and gave 19, 7 and 5. Kendric Davis had 17 and 11 assists, Cooks 18. For the Breakers, Sam Mennenga went 27 and 13 and Carlin Davison ran the show with 20 and 14 assists.
Tuesday 13 October, the club ruled Matthew Dellavedova out of both Round 5 games with a calf injury. Breakers on Wednesday. Perth on Saturday. Re-evaluated next week. The NBL injury list updated that evening at 6pm AEDT lists him Round 7 return (and yes, they misspelled his name on the page; the calf is still the calf).
Lachlan Bofinger was added to Brian Goorjian's squad as cover.
Then Canberra took another one. Jason Spurgin hurt his hand 3:48 into Wednesday's loss and didn't come back. Craig, Davis, Cooks and Maluach all played 32 minutes or more. As of Friday morning the club hasn't said whether Spurgin is right for Perth.
Delly's season line sits around 6 points, 5.3 assists and 1.8 rebounds. That is not the Davis column. It is the column that cleans up trips, holds a matchup for twenty minutes, and lets the imports breathe. When the shop says "his minutes aren't that big," what they mean is they don't show up in the highlight pack. They show up when the second unit has to close a quarter without him.
So the rotation for Perth is not the rotation that opened the season. Maluach, Carr, Robertson, Bofinger minutes become the argument, not the footnote.
Perth walk into Afterpay at 4-1, on a four-game win streak, up near the top of the ladder. Sydney sit 3-2 after two straight losses. The gap that matters is not the seed. It is form.
Saturday 11 October at RAC: Perth 100, Breakers 84. Dylan Windler 32 on 7 from 12 from three. Elijah Pepper 25. Jesse Wagstaff 13. Anthony Dell'Orso 10. Brandon Knight's NBL debut: 6 points, 5 turnovers in about 19 and a half minutes. Sam Mennenga dropped 40 and 18 for New Zealand and still lost. That was Perth's fifth straight home start to the season. Saturday in Sydney is their first road game of NBL27.
And before Knight debuted, Perth had already beaten South East Melbourne 92-88 at RAC without Knight (ill) and without Jo Lual-Acuil Jr (calf). Pepper 25. John Rillie called it a team win and talked about tip-ins and blocks from the names that don't sell tickets. JLA was still listed calf, TBC, on the 13 October injury update. Kristian Doolittle gave them a scare at training on Thursday, hurting his ankle in a scramble for a loose ball, but Rillie told The West Australian he expects his star import to line up.
So the shop line that "Perth only beat weak sides at home" has to sit next to Mennenga's 40 and a short-handed win over SEM. Home padding is a real thing in this league. A W4 with Windler cooking and Pepper at 25 twice is also a real thing. Sydney get the first look at that side on the road for Perth, in a building where the Kings just lost for the first time this year.
Depth is not "we have eleven blokes on the list." Depth is whether the second wave can survive a night when Davis goes 6 from 19 again, or when Craig's shot stays cold, or when the opponent hits the three-quarter stretch with legs that have not already played Adelaide and Canberra inside five nights.
Adelaide already answered the soft question. The Kings are not invincible at Afterpay. The hard question is Saturday: can the rotation, without Delly, keep Windler off the arc and make Pepper earn every point through traffic while Cooks and Maluach hold the paint?
The Kings still own the better season percentage (about 111 against Perth's about 100.9). That is the receipt from Cairns, Illawarra and Brisbane. It does not cash itself against a side that has won four straight and has not yet played away.
Bofinger cover is an opportunity, not a solution. Opportunity is fine. Solution is forty minutes of clean trips when the starters need air.
Kings, if the bench holds the third quarter.
Not because Sydney are the better shooting team on any given night. They might not be. They win this if Maluach and Carr and Robertson (and whoever Bofinger actually gets) turn Delly's missing minutes into trips that do not bounce back the other way. They lose this if Windler gets another 7 from 12 night and the Kings freeze like they did in the third against Adelaide.
Who pays? Not Davis, if he goes nuclear. Davis gets paid either way on a night like that. Whoever is supposed to be the second wave when Perth doubles him, or when Pepper runs off a screen in the fourth, is going to pay. Empty trips in the third are how Adelaide walked out of Afterpay with the first scalp. Empty trips without Delly to tidy them are how a W4 road side walks out with the second.
Last I saw, the calendar on the mirror still had three circles in seven days, and one name with a line through it. The young fella put his phone away. The barber went back to the fade. Saturday tip is 7:30 at Afterpay. Bring a neck for the third quarter.
If you want the Perth trip count and whether the bench was real in your inbox on Monday, put your email in the Join the List box below. I'll tell you straight who paid, and whether the barber still thinks rested was the whole story.
Rico Holt · ricoholt.com
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